By: Diane Benjamin
The Financial Statements for Bloomington appeared on-line with no fanfare. Usually the auditor makes a presentation to the Council, I didn’t see that happen this year. https://www.cityblm.org/government/departments/finance/financial-statements
The information is always moldy by the time they get around to putting it on their website. The year-end was 4/30/2020, more than 7 months ago.
The first pic shows Assets as of 4/30/2019, the bottom one is 4/30/2020. Why did Bloomington have $12 million more Cash and Investments at the end of the year?
Evidently the North Main property Bloomington bought (Old Mennonite hospital) is being keep. They paid $1.4 million so Bloomington could control who owned it. Nobody wants it. See “property held of resale” below. Unless it is only worth $16,775 now, it isn’t for sale anymore. I heard City vehicles are parked there. Another “Right Fit” fail.
See the 4/30/2020 statement here: https://www.cityblm.org/home/showdocument?id=25360
The below would be a lot easier to read if pages were printed in landscape instead of across 2 pages. See PDF page 199 and 200.
Average daily consumption of water has decreased, peak consumption has decreased dramatically. Both numbers show a local economy that isn’t growing.
One more that makes the same point. As the City takes more and more money out of the pockets of residents, people have less money to spend. It has been showing up in Sales Tax Revenue: PDF page 188. No, the internet isn’t completely to blame.
Note: Local Sales Tax was increased during 2016. Of course the increase was temporary.
See PDF page 14: The City included last year’s Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. The one they bought this year must not have arrived yet.
The statements have a lot of other information, I will report more at some point.
When a politician TELLS you that a tax increase is only TEMPORARY, just remember they are only elected for 4 years, but wind up in office for 20+ COULD be a connection there!